


Corvus

by TiMarie



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiMarie/pseuds/TiMarie
Summary: Pitch AU where Mike Lawson is in organised crime and Ginny gets caught up in that world





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Pitch AU based on the book Crow by A. Zavarelli about a girl who goes undercover in the Boston underworld to find her missing friend and finds love with one of the Irish mob. I finished the book one day and the next day I was fancasting KB as the female lead. That lead me down a Bawson and Pitch rabbithole.
> 
> I am borrowing most of the plot from the book and make no pretence that most of the plot and situations are mine. They are from A. Zavarelli. Go read the book if they story line interests you.
> 
> All original book characters have been replaced with Pitch characters.

I. Police station

Ginny took a deep breath, tightened her jaw in determination and walked into the police station for the fifth time in as many months. She had reached the point of desperation. Five months and counting and Cara was still missing. They had grown up together in foster care, moving from one indifferent family to another, always the odd ones out with no one to look out for them but each other. 

Unlike Cara, Ginny hadn’t always been in the system. She had grown up with her Dad and brother in a run down neighbourhood. Her mother long gone with her latest lover, all she had was her father and brother. Bill Baker was a hard man, a used to be champion boxer, who earned a kind of living boxing and fighting in the underground rings where money flowed. He was the one who taught her that you had to be tough or else the world would just swallow you up. It would probably swallow you up anyway. She learned that every weekend, when her father came home with assorted cuts and bruises from his fights, bleeding on the kitchen floor. She learned it when Will left and didn’t say good bye. She learned it when she was 13 and her father never came home. She heard from the neighbourhood folks that they found him in an alley with a bullet lodged in him. Lying amid the day’s trash. She heard the whispers that they found him with a mark gouged in his face. The long reach of one of the LA gangs they said behind her back. In theses streets you didn’t talk loudly about the gangs. You didn't see anything, you didn’t hear anything. You kept your head down and tried to stay alive.

Ginny stayed alive through the foster care years, but by 15 she and Cara were way too tempting for some of their foster fathers and brothers. Although her father had taught her how to fight, with Cara to protect, it seemed safer for them to make their own way on the streets. Now at 23, it seemed as if she and Cara were finally making some kinda life. A dumpy old apartment with rats and bad plumbing, in another run down part of town, But it was cheap and it was theirs. Now Cara was missing from her job as a dancer at Boarders. And Ginny had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. The police wasn’t taking it seriously. Just another pretty girl, a little wild, probably ran off with a lover. They didn’t look for long. And with Boarder’s being a Syndicate bar, they didn’t really look.

———-  
Ginny gritted her teeth as the young officer walked her to Detective Donna Mason’s office. Fucking cops. They told you all the right things, but she could see their eyes. They didn’t give a shot about Cara. Detection Mason, sat behind her desk, finishing signing whatever papers she was reading, while Ginny waited by the door. 

“Look Ms Baker, we don’t have any new information about your friend”

“Cara. Her name is Cara” Ginny gritted out, wanting to yell it to the whole station.

“Cara.” Detective Mason repeated, looking up at Ginny for the first time, apologetic. She sighed and repeated, “There is no new information. We haven’t closed the case, but…” she trailed off.

“What about Boarder’s?” Ginny insisted not for the first time.

“ We don’t have any evidence that she worked at Boarder’s. Or that she even dropped in once or twice for a drink”

“What about the other girls who have disappeared from that area? What happened to all of them? This must be connected!”

Detective Mason sighed again, looked at the picture of Cara that I had placed on her desk. “We’re looking into it Ms Baker. But right now there is no evidence that they are linked. And nothing linking Boarder’s to anything. We’re doing our best and we will let you know as soon as we find something.”

“Why don’t you send someone undercover? Ginny all but growled, nearly in tears.

Detective Mason, appeared to be losing all patience and snapped. “There is no evidence to warrant sending an agent in. We don’t have the resources for every fly by night theory” She reached down to a drawer and grabbed the uninspired white business card that Ginny had already received before, and stood up, indicating that the talk was over.

Ginny glared at her, then gave her a bitter smile. “Thank you so much for your precious time” she said and walked out of the door and out of the station.

 

11\. The Funeral

Of course it was a fucking gray day, Funerals are never on sunny days with clear blue skies, Mike thought as he listened to the end of the service and prepared to walk away from his grandfather for the very last time. He walked up to the casket and with a hand that trembled placed his fingers on the cool wood. His grandfather was his only blood relation. After being raised by his mother, unwanted by his father, moving around from place to place until his father’s death, his grandfather, Jack Corvus, had found him and brought in to San Diego and showed him the meaning of family and loyalty. It was cliched to say that his grandfather had taught him everything he new, but it was true. Jack Corvus had been the second in command to Al Luongo the head of the San Diego Syndicate. At 36 Mike Lawson had learned everything about running organised crime in this California border region. Their syndicate controlled the city and Mike Lawson controlled a lot of the syndicate.

“I’ll make you proud” Mike whispered as he took one last look at the casket. Al Luongo, the head of the Syndicate and his grandfather’s friend, was waiting and Mike walked up to him nodding respectfully. Al grabbed him in a tight hug. “Jack Corvus was the best friend I ever had” he said into his ear. Al released him and looked him directly in the eyes. “He was very proud of you, Mike” Proud of the man you became. Proud of what you are to the Syndicate.” Mike nodded, trying not to choke on the sudden tightness in his throat. He never cries. Not since his mother died and he found her, and held her alone for hours in their motel room.

“Thanks, Al” he said, looking squarely at Al, as if to assure him again, that yes he was that man that was just described.

“We’ll talk in a few days” Al says meaningfully, and walked away surrounded by his family and bodyguards. Al’s daughter, Natalie, turned back to give Mike one last sad smile,walking next to Oscar, the Syndicate’s lawyer, and Buck trudged along with then wiping his eyes.

They did have to talk. Jack Corvus didn’t just die. He was murdered in a shower of bullets outside of a restaurant. None of them thought that they would die old and in their beds. Not with this life that they lived. But for his grandfather to die like that…Mike felt the coldness settle in his chest again. he would find out who did it, and they would have much worse coming their way.

As Mike walked away from the graveyard, his own men fell in step behind him. Blip, his closest friend, a silent shadow on his right side, with Stubbs, and Shrek just behind. They walked to the dark tinted SUV and pulled away. There was a meeting with the some of the LA syndicate on their turf tonight, and he was expecting answers. They had divided up the territory between LA and San diego between them and had a strong alliance, but some one in their gang had killed his grandfather. His name was Mike Lawson but the Corvus blood rang strong. And like the crow that they were named after, he would feed on their fucking dead.

 

III. The Plan

Ginny stretched her legs out as she moved through the poses that she had been practicing. If the police wouldn’t go in to find evidence then she would. She needed to get in to Boarder’s and find work as a dancer. Maybe then she could talk to the other girls and find some answers. Find Cara. Ginny swallowed around the lump in her throat as she shifted her balance and lifted her arms into another movement. Thank god for You tube and friends like Amelia who worked as a call girl and sometimes exotic dance. She needed to get in as an exotic dancer and she needed to be good. She knew she was gorgeous with her face and lithe body, but pretty girls are a dime a dozen and she needed to wow them if she even got half a chance. Thankfully, all her years in boxing and martial arts had honed her physique so that all the contortions came easy. And thank God for her training, because she couldn’t just walk up to Boarder’s and get a job. With time slipping away, she had to get their attention in some way, away from the other girls. And she needed to prove that she could move in the underworld like them. And she knew just the way.

 

IV. The Fight

Buck came up to her wringing his hands nervously and asked “You sure you want to do this, Ginny?”

Ginny’s chin came up and she tightened her jaw, and said “Yes. I’m sure” She was covered in a long hooded robe waiting to get into the ring to fight in the night’s bouts organised by the syndicate. Buck was the person in charge of the gym (The Syndicate owned it, it was whispered). He had been a training mate of her father’s and she had been working on his for weeks now, unashamedly asking that he give her one chance for her father’s sake. She really needed the money. And no, her pride wouldn’t let her take it from him.

“I’m doing this for you Cara” Ginny whispered into the air. “You would do the same for me”.

The tightness in her chest grew as she thought not only about what was at stake, but the fact that she was going into that ring and would be fighting Tommy Miller, one of the Syndicate fighters. Her dad had trained her and then she had trained at places around the city. She knew she was good. She was strong and fast, she knew how to size up an opponent and how to take advantage when they inevitably underestimated her. But she would knock Tommy Miller out and get their fucking attention.

“Your dad would be really proud of you, Ginny” Buck said with a smile as Ginny waited in the corridor to enter the room to her chosen music, Mama said knock you out”

Ginny nodded, took a deep breath and walked out to the roar of the crowd.

“Ladies and Gentlemen” a voice cried out over the PA, “Are you ready for our next bout?” Cheers erupt from the blood thirst crowd and the betting as always continues.

“Fighting out of Southeast at one hundred and ninety pounds is Tommy “Pitcher” Miller!” Miller leaps into the ring and bangs his forearms together like a baseball player and walks around the ring, whooping at his no doubt adoring public, who are counting on him to win them some spending money. As Tommy made another circle, Ginny took a careful look at the crowd. Her eyes go right away to the VIP areas. ‘Damn” she gritted out. Al Luongo wasn’t there tonight. But she could tell that the group of somber looking men sitting in the front row, were Syndicate crew. They all had the same relaxed but could and would kill you in a second look. And one of them was staring right at her. With his dark eyes and bearded face, she recognised the third in command, Mike Lawson. There are lots of stories about him. A gruff serious man, they said he was cold as ice and he could kill you with a smile on his face. He didn’t need his men to kill for him. He was a fighter himself she had heard, and she could see the controlled strength in his thick arms and shoulders. She could not see the rest of him, but she imagine the strong thighs that completed that body. She could see that his men respected him, they way they casually circled him, turned towards him like he was the sun. She turned away from him as they announced her, 

“And also from Southeast, we have a rookie tonight, standing at five foot eight and one hundred and forty pounds, Ginny “The Rookie” Baker! As Ginny jerked her robe off and her muscled by very female body comes into view, they was some broken off curses and then the room went dead silent. 

Tommy was the first to cry out. “You have to be kidding me, Buck. I can’t fight no girl. Girls are for fucking not fighting” Ginny glared at him and thought briefly about kicking him in the balls so that he could either fight nor fuck.

“What’s the matter, Princess? Scared I might ruing your fucking face?” Ginny couldn’t resist taunting Tommy.

Tommy glared at Ginny and took a step forward before glancing nervously in the direction of the VIP section. Tommy, Buck and almost everyone else who knew where the power in the room lay, turned to Mike questioningly. Mike nods and its on.

“You sure you’re up for this sweetheart?” Tommy grins in what she imagines he assumes is his most charming smile.

“More than you are” Ginny winked at him, lets her gaze drop down to his groin. Tommy’s grin faltered and he glared at her.

“Come on, let’s give the people what they came for” Ginny waved her fingers in the universal come on sign. Buck gave the signal and it was on.

Tommy was bigger and stronger, but Ginny was faster and smarter, after the early exchanges where they both managed to land a few blows, Ginny managed an uppercut to Tommy’s jaw that enraged him. As Ginny had predicted, he charged her attempting to use brute strength and not skill. With a few well executed moves, Ginny held him in a triangle choke, holding on as he bucked against her, until he fell unconscious. Ginny grinned. She had won.

As Tommy’s friends carted him off, Ginny lay on the floor of the ring gasping for breath. The room was in an uproar. A lot of people had lost money on that bout. The syndicate crew are talking and looking at her assentingly, but it is Mike that Ginny is looking at. He doesn’t look away from her, his dark eyes inscrutable across the room, but Ginny feels as if there is an electric cord connecting him to her and she can’t look away. As he gets up and walks towards the ring, Ginny gets a first look at the rest of him, thighs hugging his pants, the glimpse of the tattoos under his long sleeved shirt. He walks like a fighter and Ginny watches his hands, calloused from boxing. As he clears his throat , Ginny looks up through the ropes where he is standing on the other side still looking at her. Ginny tried to convince herself that the pounding of her heart was from the fight alone. But she knows its him. 

Ginny stands up shaking out her curly hair, noticing the way his gaze follows the ounce of the curls. She steps back as he climbs into the ring, moving away from him instinctively. Out of the corner of her eye, there is a blur, as Tommy, conscious once again and obviously mad as hell jumps in the rings and makes a grab for her. But quicker than she would have thought, Mike reacts, yanking Tommy away and bending his arm backwards in a painful grip. Mike bent down to whisper something in Tommy’s ear and Tommy nodded once, his eyes still blazing at Ginny. Without a second Look Tommy walks away and Mike returns to staring at me, this time suspiciously.

“Sorry about Tommy” he apologises in a smooth voice.

“No big deal” Ginny responded, annoyed at the breathless quality of her voice.

“Girls don’t generally fight in these things” he added and Ginny’s jaw went up stubbornly.

“But a woman just won anyway. Lucky me I don’t play by the rules” 

“You beat one of my best fighters” Mike added, his face once again expressionless.

“Thanks” Ginny gave him her best dimpled smile, as if it was a compliment.

“i don’t recall seeing you around here before, rookie” Mike added, emphasising her fighting name. It sounds like a threat, and Ginny stills.

“I only fight when I need money” Ginny responded as the plan began to take root in her brain. Mike Lawson owns Boarder’s. She needs to get a job there. 

Just when she is about to bring it up, attention turns to a second group of men that she had not noticed before. Judging by their shiny expensive suits, this must be members of the LA gang. One of them is looking at her intently. Ginny smiles and waves to them, a carefree victor. But she hates them all. One of them killed her father.

Mike turns to go to meet with his business associates, and as he bends to exit through the ropes he slaps her on her ass and something flashes in her eyes. “I have to go” he says, “see ya, rookie” and he walks away.

Ginny grits her teeth from that ass slap. She would like to slap his ass to see how he feels. As she watches that admittedly tight ass walk away, Ginny resolves that yes, he would see her again. Sooner than he thinks.

 

V. That girl

As Mile waked towards the LA associates, he has to force his mind away from Ginny and the list of things running through his mind and down his body: big dark eyes, curly hair, that bronze skin glistening with sweat, legs that went on for days, and yes that ass that he couldn’t resist touching.

Trevor Davis came up to him, greeting him solemnly. The alliance between San Diego and Los Angeles syndicates had been fruitful. Clashes had all been but eliminated and profits were up for both sides. But there still remained the not so same matter of his grandfather’s murder.

“Have you found out who it is?” Mike asked Trevor with a growl. The LA bosses had agreed as a gesture of goodwill to find out who had done the killing, and to hand him or them over for some San Diego justice. 

“We have a name and the proof” Trevor said slowly, and Mike could see that there was something else.

“What?” he said “Spit it out” he gritted, trying to remain cordial.

“Things have gotten a little more complicated.” Trevor sighed, “The girl who fought? Is she one of yours?

“Why?” Mike asked, immediately not liking where this is going.

Trevor gestured to the Mountain, standing to the side, looking intently down the corridor that led to the lockers. “Mount thinks she is a threat. To some of our other business. He’ll take it to the Boss and if the Boss agrees, he’ll want you to hand her over, if she’s not one of yours” The unspoken words are that if she was part of the Syndicate she could be trusted to not reveal whatever they thought she knew. If she wasn’t, well, they all knew how things would go.

“She’s one of ours” Mike says, looking at Trevor challengingly. 

Trevor just raised his eyebrows and added, “ She could be made a part of the deal for your grandfather’s killer”

Mike bit back a curse as Trevor wished them good night and headed towards his line of cars for the trip back to his bosses.

Blip came to stand next to him offering silent support as always. “What are you going to do about the girl?”

This timeMike curses as he says, “I’ll sort her out”.

 

VI. The crew

“Did you see the ass on her?” Stubbs whistles as they walk back to their won cars.

“I did” Mike growls, so you can stop going on about it”

Stubbs and Shrek look at each other, wondering about by strange mood and carry on anyway. 

“She’s like a supermodel. Who fights!”

“And those legs. The tits. No wonder poor Tommy couldn’t concentrate to fight.”

Mike’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel and he presses down on the accelerator a little more than he planned. The more the crew talked about her, the angrier he became, and the more he was getting aroused just thinking about those same attributes.

“Fuck her. She cost me five grand” he managed to say.

The others laugh joking about how much money they lost on the flight. Only blip remained silent. Mike turned to him, “How much did you lose?”

Blip just smiles slowly, “I made a cool three grand. I bet on her”

“Motherfucker!” shouted one voice from the back and Mike was forced to laugh. Until on of the guys started talking about getting her number.

“Nobody’s getting her fucking number” Mike all but yelled. Silence descended on the car as the others looked at each other and at Mike, but kept mercifully quiet.

Mike turned up the radio and drove home.

 

VII. The Audition

Ginny spent the next week recalling everything she could about Mike Lawson and his crew and practicing her dance moves. She would have one shot to impress him, and get a job at Boarder’s after that. It would be up to her alone to find the information she needed to find Cara, wherever she was. In her heart, Ginny payed that it was not too late. That she was not too late.

Amelia helped her choose an outfield and plan her routine, at the same time trying to talk Ginny out of it. They both knew how the syndicate worked. There could be a bullet and a shallow grave waiting for her at the end of this road. But Ginny just strengthened her resolved and practiced harder. 

The top floor of Boarder’s was the regular bar, a meeting point for the young cool set, for celebrations and dates, and happily after afters. The basement floor was the special place for only special few, Syndicate members and specially invited guests. This was where there was exotic dancing, and the dancer, wait staff and bar staff, were all Syndicate or in so deep that they could never get out. Not alive at least.

As Ginny got dressed and fixed her makeup, she looked at herself in the mirror. A smiley eye made her dark eyes seem even bigger, her lips glistened red, and she had left her curly hair out. It was now or never.

————  
When Ginny got to Boarder’s it was just about 1 am and the action was just starting. She was hoping that one of the syndicate crew would recognise her, offer to guy her a drink and she could give her sob story of needing money and that dancing was easier than the ring. And she would be so surprised and happy to hear that there was an opening downstairs.

Ginny sat at the bar on the ground floor drinking her whisky with ice, smiling at the bartender, and trying to look as innocent of ulterior motives as possible. She thought that she saw some familiar faces, but they were walking so fast that she couldn’t be sure. As the minutes ticked on, she got nervous and started to wonder if she needed a plan B. As she stared down at the wooden bar, the bartender placed another whisky in front of her. She smiled and reached for her purse, but he simply said “On the house” and turned away.

“Shit” she thought and was about to turn around to see who had recognised her when a voice whispered near her ear, “Rookie. Fancy seeing you her. Are you stalking me?”

Ginny almost choked on her whisky. Please. He wishes she thought and turned about to the bearded ma looking intently at her, his face just inches from her own. He is wearing a suit tonight with the collar open, and the glimpse of his throat and a peek at chest just does something to her heart beat.

“I’m not stalking you. That would be dangerous wouldn’t it? Everyone in San Diego knows who you are, and the hot bed of criminal activity you have here. What is it? The Luongo Syndicate” Ginny taunts, realising as soon as she said it that she had said the wrong thing.

Mike’s face went from a small smile to a cold blankness, and without saying a word , he yanked her off her stool, pass the tables and down the corridor to an office. His office she supposed.

Still not saying anything, he started feeling all over her body checking for wires. His hands were hard and relentless and Ginny stood shocked as they moved over and between her breasts. He yanked up her short skirt and searched her groin area. At that point Ginny’s fight response kicked it and she started to struggle in his arms. Mike tightened his hold on her, and not finding any wires, she stared at her intensely, as if to find the answer to all his suspicions in her face. Ginny looked into his dark eyes, trying to convince him of whatever he is looking for, trying to convince herself that his nearness was not affecting her.

“Why are you here?” Mike rasped out, his voice hoarse as he finally stepped away.

“I’m looking for a job. I need money and fighting won’t work. They won’t let me fight. But I can fight and I can dance.” Ginny had recovered herself by now and gave him her best dimpled smile. “You bet I can dance”

Mike shocked her by bursting out in laugher. It;s the first time she has seen him with something other than the small turn of his lip. As he laughs, his eyes crinkle and his face transforms and he becomes another man completely.

When he catches himself a little, Mike says “Rookie, you’re cute and all. Drop dead gorgeous in fact, but I am not going to give you a job”

Ginny glared up at him demanding to know why not.

“Because I don’t fucking trust you”

“How much trust do you need for me to shake my ass on stage every night”

“More than you would expect to work with me and …my friends” 

Ginny looked at his calm expression, the laughing, crinkled eye Mike Lawson was gone and the cold third in command was back again. “Just let me audition. Please.” she begged.

“You’re cute when you beg”

“Oh please don’t come with any of that fucking male bullshit. I’m not begging you. I’m asking nicely for a chance to prove myself”

“You’re a feisty thing aren’t you? Mike grabbed the arm that I had been rudely pointing in his face. And as he held Ginny;s hand and his fingers danced over her pulse he could feel how fast it was going. He looked up at her as if in surprise, and his eyes went from her eyes to her lips and back again. Their foreheads moved closer and they stood there breathing the same air.

Mike looked at her angrily. He couldn’t understand why he was still here encouraging her think she stood a chance to work for him downstairs.

He grabs her my her neck “ Do you understand what this place is? Who you’ll be working for?”

“I’m from Southeast” Ginny blurts out. “I know the drill. You don;t see nothing, you don’t say nothing. You don’t snitch. I fucking know that”

“If you get in, there’s no way out. You’re only done if we say you’re done”

Ginny nodded, “Understood” She stood there trembling, both from his nearness which set her pulse ablaze, but also at the thought that she might be getting a chance. This time she knows better and stays silent, begging him silently to let her audition.

Without saying a word, Mike holds on to her arm and not so gently pulls her out the door and down the corridor to the steps that led down to the special club. At this time, the rooms were dark with only the dj finishing off his packing up. 

Mike nodded to him saying” I’ve got an audition. You can go, but leave the sound on”

Ginny realising that this was her chance, smiled and said that she had her own music. She hooked up her phone to the speaker, and scrolled through to where she had Firework waiting for the routine she had practiced. But this wasn’t a firework occasion. She needed to freestyle it. She scrolled through to another sound and pressed play.

As the first soft bars came through the speakers, Ginny climbed on stage and shimmied out of her short skirt and leather jacket. She was wearing a red two piece ensemble that left little to the imagination. She saw his eyebrows raise up as he saw her wearing only that, and as she wrapped her long legs around the pole, she glanced over her shoulder at him. His face is a mask of indifference, but Ginny smiles at him as Janet starts to croon:

“In the thunder and rain  
You stare into my eyes  
I can feel your hand  
Moving up my thighs…”

 

TBC


End file.
